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Has anyone ever failed with Assimil? | ||
Tags: Discouragement from learning | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6785 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 24 21 January 2012 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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My thing with Assimil is that it doesn't have the intensity to really make me feel
engaged. The lessons are short and trying to do them at a faster pace is not necessarily such a good idea. Meanwhile it's really really long if you do one per day and it's hard to maintain that motivation. My instinct tells me that it's taking way too long to get through a small booklet like that. At least in the "easy" languages, I haven't tried it with any of the tough ones. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 18 of 24 21 January 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am on Day 13 of Assimil Italian with Ease (newest edition with English as the base
language). Way too early to be definitive either way (not that we ever could be with this sort of thing), but it is very interesting to me to read everyone's input! I am still sticking with going through the lessons once in the morning and once at night. I believe it was fanatic that had the most success with the course, and one of his long posts pointed out that you need to play by the rules of the game, haha. Maybe if I get REALLY bored I would start the active phase soon. But for now, the variation of the dialogues and all is enough to keep my interest piqued. Maybe Come the end of day 155 (the 105 lessons plus the last 50 days of only the active phase), I will feel that I completely wasted my time. I somehow doubt that, though. I think the guaranteed 30+ minutes of Italian exposure per day is likely doing a lot for me on the subconscious level. We shall see what happens! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Opensecret Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4694 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian, Mandarin | Message 19 of 24 22 January 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
I've only used Assimil in two of what could be considered "harder" languages (Russian and Mandarin). In both cases, I started the language with Pimsleur and worked my way through level III. I also used other texts before hitting Assimil. But Assimil is one of my two favorite language-learning text series (the other is the Teach Yourself collection). My approach to Assimil is to ignore the active/passive distinction. I just move through the lessons at a pace that works for me, making sure that I can comfortably read the text material and can do the little exercises to translate into the target language before moving to the next lesson. I figure everyone has different learning styles and preferences, and it makes sense to do what works for you. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Footnoted Newbie United States Joined 4859 days ago 35 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 20 of 24 26 January 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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This summer, primarily in anticipation of a vacation in France this spring, I began using Assimil (along with dabbling in some secondary materials such as grammar books and FIA videos) as my first attempt at self-study of a language (decades ago I had French in high school, and then some Spanish and Latin in college, with the usual tepid results). After four months or so I finished the passive wave of Assimil New French with Ease and then immediately started the passive wave of Using French, while simultaneously continuing the active wave of NFWE. For me this has been a mistake. I have started focusing more on the passive wave of the second book to the detriment of the active wave of the former book. There is way too much new material for me. Each lesson now takes 3-4 days and I do not have anyting approaching mastery of the lessons--I just sort of move on. I now wish I had just completed the active wave of the first book before starting the second book. I feel that my fledgling knowledge of the language is spread too "thin"--very little retention, perhaps because there is such emphasis on idioms. I wish Assimil would more frequently rearrange the elements already given to you, instead of giving you a taste and then moving on. In any event, with my confidence ebbing and my trip to France approaching, I recently started Pimsleur French (while still unwilling to drop the Assimils entirely, which are now proceeding at a crawl). I must say that after 22 Pimsleur lessons I am feeling much more confident that I will be able to have a basic conversation in France. (Certainly Assimil will be partly responsible, and will be almost entirely responsible for any reading that I am able to do while there.) I hope to complete all 90 Pimsleur lessons before my trip. In short, I would not use Assimil as my primary method of preparing for a trip abroad. Perhaps what I mean to say is that Assimil and Pimsleur may be a good combination.
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| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 24 27 January 2012 at 5:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I guess Footnoted's experience suggests against continuing on in a passive wave through Using Spanish after finishing Spanish with Ease. Finishing Spanish with Ease first is probably the way to do it, and I'm not sure that I'm not going to alternate days doing the passive wave and the active wave, when I get there.
I wonder if people like fanatic reviewed past lessons a lot. I find myself feeling much more sure that I am accomplishing something when I go over lessons at increasing intervals, today's lesson, yesterday's, five days ago, 25 days ago. I also feel like I am accomplishing something when I actually translate from Spanish to English. If I can run through a conversation translating from Spanish to English three times in a row without hesitating, I feel like I have the lesson down. I don't know if this violates the spirit of the "passive wave", or if I care about the "spirit of the passive wave." I keep changing my mind about the best way to do the passive wave, but I suspect you can learn more, without very much more effort, if you include review and L2->L1 translation. I have one more week until I start the active wave. I am impatiently waiting to get there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5567 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 22 of 24 27 January 2012 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Sfuqua - that is the method I use - using small post-it flags to mark the review intervals and doing a
translation from English about 3 times before moving on. I find it makes things 'stick' better and helps active production of the target language. With a pure passive wave, I find I think I have grasped something but I haven't and it's only in active production that I realize the holes in my knowledge. It does become appreciably more difficult doing this with the Using books. Edited by Elexi on 27 January 2012 at 9:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 23 of 24 30 January 2012 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm having a similar experience as Footnoted has - I'm enjoying the second book
(French), but feel that I need to work more on my base, as I'm not retaining enough to be conversational. However, I'm also finding Pimselur III to be pretty dang easy after Assimil. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5785 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 24 of 24 30 January 2012 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I forget where, but I think someone here suggested putting lesson numbers into srs
software and using that to tell you when to review. I thought it was a really good idea, for instance Anki would allow you to reschedule reviews depending on how well you feel you know each particular lesson. Someone mentioned a lack of intensity with Assimil, I find blind shadowing Assimil very intense (and so far actually only possible with material I already thought I knew). So I'm not quite able to use Professor Argüelles' method in its pure form yet. I mainly shadow my target language while reading the English translation before attempting blind shadowing, which is still pretty intense (much harder than shadowing whilst reading the target language). Edited by Random review on 30 January 2012 at 10:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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